Bob Harris is an American film actor, far past his prime. He visits Tokyo to appear in commercials, and he meets Charlotte, the young wife of a visiting photographer. Bored and weary, Bob and Charlotte make ideal if improbable traveling companions. Charlotte is looking for "her place in life," and Bob is tolerating a mediocre stateside marriage. Both separately and together, they live the experience of the American in Tokyo. Bob and Charlotte suffer both confusion and hilarity due to the cultural and language differences between themselves and the Japanese. As the relationship between Bob and Charlotte deepens, they come to the realization that their visits to Japan, and one another, must soon end. Or must they?

CHANGED THE WAY I LOOK AT THE WORLD

I didn't know Sofia Coppola was the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, famous for the Godfather trilogy. I guess directing is in the blood. She won the Oscar for best Sceenplay for this movie, her first feature film and in my view it was really well deserved. Shame about Bill Murray losing out to Sean Penn for Best Actor, his role in Mystic River.

This movie takes you on journey to Tokyo. Being Asian American myself I found the movie very funny in places and cannot remember seeing a film that really gives you a complete sense of a place in the way this film does.

The story is just about an unlikely friendship that emerges between two lonely people stuck in a Japanese hotel for different reasons.

But although it is really simple the movie offers the viewer so much more. It is an exploration into why we do the things we do and end up the people we become while allowing us, the viewer to travel on a journey into the unknown. Sofia Coppola uses the hustle and bustle of a unique culture and city to paint this intriguing metaphor while delivering rich, deliverable characters in her beautiful script.

Some movies you only need to watch once, this is one that can be enjoyed over and over. Every time I watch it it gives me something new.